Living in Shades of Gray
by Annu B
Summary: Katherine Gray is an Empath. She senses things. And she's been assigned to Beacon Hills because it has become a hub for supernatural activity. As an Empath, she's supposed to keep the human population mostly in the dark, and as far as possible, keep everyone alive. We'll see how well that goes. In the meantime, let's hope she doesn't lose her head. Or, for that matter, her heart.


She sat in the coffee shop, alone, sipping her macchiato slowly and savoring it more than she should. Coffee is bad for teenagers, she reminded herself, but she kept drinking because it was warm and she needed to be awake. She had been sent to Beacon Hills for a reason, and until she figured out how to best keep everyone safe, or rather to keep her conscience clear, sleeping would just be asking for nightmares.

As an Empath, they wouldn't even be her nightmares. She'd just be a conductor for the nightmares of other people.

Her pink lips curled in a slight frown as she blew the steam off her drink. Being an Empath made her extremely receptive to others' emotions and health, and people in this town were beyond stressed because of the drama that occurred last spring.

Oh, god, the drama. She didn't know enough to stop it. Who was the problem? Why was the goddamn Alpha pack here? Who was in danger? She rubbed her hand over eyes tiredly. Another sip of coffee went down her throat. And the biggest question, when did it become her job and responsibility to deal with all this? She dealt with supernatural containment, not pack squabbles.

The bell to the shop rang, announcing the arrival of another customer, and her surprise made her reflexively look up. Very few people were up and about at five in the morning. But this person who was also awake at an ungodly hour, was, very surprisingly, also a teenager. She let her hair fall partially in front of her face and watched him surreptitiously. He was tall, around six feet, with curly light brown hair, and, she looked closer, blue eyes. He was pretty attractive, and if she weren't so stressed, she would have taken the time to flirt a little. As it was, she had no time for that.

She stared at him a bit more, though. His aura was... not normal. All auras were different, but his just wasn't - wasn't _human_.

"He's a werewolf," she breathed, and then looked away from him quickly as she fought the urge to slap a hand on her face. He probably heard her, too, having werewolf hearing. She glanced up again, but he hadn't reacted at all; he was still just chatting with the cashier and paying for his own drink. She sighed in relief, but then stiffened, panicking, when the boy walked over to her with his drink.

"MInd if I sit here?" he asked her, smiling and acting friendly enough as he pointed to the seat across from her.

"No, go ahead." While it was stupid of her to reveal she knew about werewolves, she could protect herself from him well enough.

"I'm Isaac, by the way."

"Hi. Katherine."

"NIce to meet you. How did you know I was a werewolf?" Katherine, who preferred to be called Kit, nearly spat out her coffee, and Isaac's smirk told her he'd purposefully waited for her to take a sip before mentioning his lycanthropy.

After managing to swallow, she took a good look at him and decided to be truthful.

"Your aura."

"My aura? What does that mean?"

"You know, this spirit thing that emanates from your soul and sometimes people like me can sense. An aura."

"People like you? And what are you, a psychic?" Kit snorted.

"Please. Those don't exist. I can't tell the future. I'm an Empath. I can sense things, like auras, and I can under certain circumstances read emotions like thoughts."

"And that's how you knew?"

"Well, no. Because you're a werewolf, your aura is very different from a normal human's. It's much larger, because you're much stronger and more energetic, and it's much redder."

"Redder? Aura's have colors?"

"Yeah." Isaac gave her a disbelieving look. "What, werewolves can exist, but auras can't have colors? Keep some perspective, man." He smiled a little.

"Okay, so my aura is red?"

"No, it's redder. Around the edges. The rest of it is... kind of bronze."

"Bronze?"

"Yeah. It's pretty remarkable, actually. I've never seen a bronze aura."

"What does it mean?"

"Plenty of things, I imagine. But I don't know you, so I can't tell you what the significance of your bronze aura is."

"Oh."

"Yeah." Kit finished off her coffee. "Well, nice talking to you, Isaac." She grabbed her purse and stood up, exiting the shop.

"Wait, what?" She heard Isaac call after her. He followed her out to her car, and she sighed. Obviously he wasn't just going to let her go.

"Can I help you?"

"Um, well, you're an...Empath, which means God knows what, and you know about me, so I can't just let you go."

"You can and you will. Unless you want to kidnap me. I have places to be, people to meet, Alphas to keep an eye on.."

"You're here because of the Alphas?"

"No, but since I'm here, I might as well see what I can do about them." She opened the door to her car and made to get in, but Isaac grabbed her arm.

"Okay, hold on just a second. I think maybe you should go see my Alpha."

"Derek Hale? Why would I want to go see him? He doesn't know anything, and he's being all angst-ridden about the Alpha pack, so he'll be a bitch to talk to."

"You... you know him?" Kit laughed.

"I know a lot. Just not enough." She pulled free of his grip and drove off, noting that he was staring incredulously after her. Great. Brilliant. Soon the whole town would know an Empath was in town, and the last thing she needed was a confrontation with Deucalion, who wasn't a threat, but wasn't particularly pleasant either. Really, that whole thing was completely her fault and quite stupid of her.

She returned to her apartment and pulled out her laptop. Time for research.

At the end of the day, she was barely any closer to finding out anything. There was no reason for the Alphas, or any other werewolves to congregate in Beacon Hills. If anything, it was actually a bad place to be, what with all the publicized "animal attacks" that happened there. There were only so many murders her people could cover up.

Empaths were meant to keep the supernatural and the "normal" separate and coexisting harmoniously, but this town seemed to be having none of that.

She sighed and got up to go for a walk. Of utmost importance to Empaths was protection. Innocents should live. And this town had a tangible aura of terror and horrible acts that had been committed. Kit shuddered as she thought of Peter Hale, back from the dead. The dead should stay that way. She really hoped she would never run into him; his aura would be horrible.

As she walked, she passed by a high school. Huh. She had better enroll, seeing as how half the werewolves in the town attended. It was still summer for another week, but the school was open in preparation for the beginning of classes. But not just then, of course. Not in the middle of the night.

She returned home at around one in the morning and turned on the TV, ready to pass the night doing anything but sleeping.


End file.
